Field

Western African History

Research Interests

Recently I completed a study of the history of trans-Saharan trade in nineteenth-century Western Africa. This work examines the organization of long-distance trade from the point of view of the logistics and the strategies that caravaners employed to outfit and launch regional and trans-Saharan caravans in a large region encompassing present-day Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal and the Western Sahara.

Currently, I am working on two research projects. The first is a book tentatively entitled "Contracting Trust: Paper, Literacy and the Law in the History of Muslim Africa." It examines the impact of literacy and writing paper in the organization of early modern and modern Muslim and non-Muslim economies. This is a broad study that begins with a history of the production and use of paper in world history, and goes on to consider how legal institutions and commercial literacy shaped ‘paper economies.’ Depending on the religious frameworks and legal cultures supporting these institutions, they experienced different economic development outcomes. The second project, tentatively entitled "The Evolution of Women's Rights in Muslim West Africa,” is a study of legal culture and patterns of judicial rulings in Senegal and Mauritania, with some comparative research in other parts of Muslim Africa. Working with French colonial archives, including those of the Tribunal Musulman in Saint-Louis (Senegal), and local Mauritanian legal sources, I am studying how Muslim African women carved out spaces of power by using both colonial and local institutions of the law in the nineteenth century, and following these developments to uncover how and why certain groups of women experienced an erosion of their rights in the course of the early twentieth century.

This book explores the history of trans-Saharan trade in western Africa in the nineteenth century. It treats the Sahara as a bridge that connected peoples across the continent. This is the first study of its kind to document the history and organization of trans-Saharan trade in western Africa using original source material. It examines the internal dynamics of a trade network system based on a case-study of the Wad Nun traders who specialized in outfitting camel caravans in the nineteenth century. Through an examination of contracts, correspondence, fatwas, and interviews with retired caravaners, Lydon shows how traders used their literacy skills in Arabic and how they had recourse to experts of Islamic law to regulate their long-distance transactions. The book also considers the methods employed by women participating in caravan trade. By embracing a continental approach, this study bridges the divide between West African and North African studies. The work will be of interest to students of African, Middle Eastern, and world history and to scholars of long-distance trade, Muslim societies, and legal cultures.

“Women, Children and the Popular Front’s Missions of Inquiry in French West Africa.” In French Colonial Empire and the Popular Front , Tony Chafer & Amanda Sackur Eds. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 170-187.

Awards

Winner of the Martin A. Klein Prize in African History at the 125th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in Boston for On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Western Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Alongside our existing 12 sub-fields, the History Department supports a number of cross-field clusters. The clusters are intended to attract students and faculty to important themes and current in the historical discipline. The clusters will offer new courses, sponsor outside speakers, and convene Department-based workshops and seminars.